Jessie M Dodge, PhD

Jessie started their ecology career researching plant defense mechanisms from insect herbivory at Western State College in Gunnison, CO. Afterwards, they worked with various researchers studying the effects of disturbances on vegetation recovery in rangeland communities and interned with the Chicago Botanic Garden and BLM's Seeds of Success program where they collected native seeds for seed banks and participated in bat and hummingbird population monitoring projects in the Grand Staircase National Monument. From there, they pursued their MS in Natural Resources at the University of Idaho researching wildfire and forest thinning effects on vegetation recovery and plant-pollinator community compositions in the ponderosa pine forests of eastern Oregon. They continued researching disturbance effects on pollinators while working on their PhD in Forest Sciences at Colorado State University, specifically investigating how wildfire and forest thinning affect cavity-nesting bee nest provisioning and bee-parasite interactions in the ponderosa pine forests near Boulder, CO. After obtaining their PhD at the end of 2024, they found themselves working here at the Fort Collins Science Center, now investigating ungulate herbivory as a disturbance on plant communities.